World Citizen:Community Portal
Exercise in Speculation: Catalyst for change? I don't know much about World Citizen movements, but after an interesting conversation in #wikicities with Janos about it, he suggested I post my somewhat compatable crazy theory here, so here it is. Just a day earlier I'd had an interesting conversation in another channel about the possibility of seceding from all nations and forming a new one, and how that could be done. Lets start by assuming the goal is to have "World Citizens" accepted as tourists, long and short term residents, and business professionals at a majority of countries of the world. There are of course (I'd guess) other goals and ideals, but this is just speculation for one of them, at the moment. To me, one way to achieve recognition of world citizenship is to make many countries want you to visit, work, and reside in their lands. To do this, one needs money, a place to reside, and sheer numbers. If someone has no money, no home, and no friends, they probably won't want to go back to them. A world citizen shouldn't look like a refugee. And yet, if the person has citizenship of a country, their world citizenship can too easily be denied by the fact that they live in some country (I'd guess). So my proposal is this: # Build an artifical island in international waters, and charter a company on it (most viably a mining power, farming, and technology company). No nation can claim international waters, so forming a nation wouldn't be very viable, and would defeat the purpose of having worldwide citizenship. Also, there is probably no land in international waters that is unclaimed, so any land that was used for this speculation would have the stigma of belonging to some country. (Read more here on the legality and practicality of this). Note: Location is important, but at first glance, somewhere in the North Sea (between Scotland and Denmark) seems most ideal. Friendly and stable countries all around, shallow ocean depths, enough distance to be international waters (I think), not too much rough weather, and lots of sea traffic for trade. # Invite/hire a few hundred thousand people to inhabit it, and have most of them them renounce their citizenship, from whatever country they reside in. # After a while, start issuing passports titled "Earth" or "World Citizen". With enough economical influence (even a fraction of a percent of the world market), at least a few countries should accept them and their bearers with open arms and cash registers, knowing that they have money, a place of residence, and no desperate urge to stay illegally in their country if not welcome. With time the acceptance should grow. Of course, this would take an initial investment on the order of billions of dollars, and tens of thousands of volunteers willing to make it happen, with no small amount of risk on their part. But to put it in context, that would be only a small fraction of a percent of the world population, resources, and money. So, that's my rough speculation. I had mostly considered the logistics of an artificial island for the possibility of being free of all jursidiction (other than international treaties, which would limit polution and piracy, but not much else), but it works somewhat for this purpose too. Discuss. Splarka 11:26, 13 Oct 2005 (UTC)